


a five minute flame

by Fiathe



Series: What am I to you? What are you to me? [1]
Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: AU, M/M, Relationship Discussions, Smoking, boys are adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3879688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiathe/pseuds/Fiathe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I am not your,<br/>Five-minute cigarette break.<br/>You can’t put me out,<br/>After lighting me up.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	a five minute flame

**Author's Note:**

> based on a tumblr post i saw of the very same quote posted in the summary. 
> 
> Also, this is the first of my experimental series: What am I to you? What are you to me? It's a collection of short works I produce in spontaneous single sittings and then edit at a later date. The reoccurring theme is the questioning of one's self in the eyes of another. The inspiration is usually from stuff I see on tumblr: pictures, quotes, the like.

The hour before dawn is a lightening grey, the same shifting shade as the smoke that issues from Yoongi’s mouth as he slowly exhales.

“Why do you love smoking so much?” Jimin asks from his position next to Yoongi on the widespread white sheets. His face is half furrowed into the dented pillow as he speaks, so he lifts it in order to see Yoongi properly, raising himself up onto his forearms and stretching under the rumpled covers as he does so.

Yoongi snorts with amusement but doesn't look to Jimin. Instead, he tilts his head back against the headboard and takes another long drag from the cigarette. He’s shirtless and Jimin’s eyes fall to the soft define of muscle in his chest that tighten as he inhales and relaxes as he exhales.

Somehow Yoongi has managed to tug on a pair of long sweats without Jimin realizing. They're the colour of Seoul by night. Technically they're Jimin's and it’s not like Jimin actually gave him permission to wear it, but their relationship has become this strange blend of somewhat familiarity and Jimin kind of likes the idea of Yoongi wearing something of his, so he tightens his mouth and says nothing. 

“It calms me down I guess,” Yoongi says finally, his words feather soft and silken. He looks to Jimin as he speaks and Jimin can smell the smoke on his breath. He wrinkles his nose and drops his face back down to the pillow which smells instead of sweat and sex.

His eyes however do not leave Yoongi’s lips. He watches, fascinated, as the end of the cigarette glows red when Yoongi takes a drag.

“They’re bad for you though,” he finds himself saying as he watches Yoongi tap the cigarette into the little glass tray on the bedside table, the trickle of ash a hypnotising fluttering fall. The ash tray is Yoongi's but somehow it's become a permanent fixture in Jimin's bedroom over time. 

Yoongi shrugs as he lifts the white roll up again. “A lot of things are bad for you,” he says, but he doesn't put the cigarette to his mouth just yet.

 _Like us?_ Jimin wonders because there is no way a relationship based on nothing but sex is healthy.

Yoongi seems to catch the hidden heat behind Jimin’s unspoken words and he swings his glance down to look at Jimin. Jimin knows that Yoongi’s eyes are raking down his body, down the smooth slope of his back and across the ridges of muscles. Jimin is proud of the work that has gone into his body and normally he would invite such a hungry look, but there is something molten and ravenous in Yoongi’s gaze that makes him want to drop their eye contact. 

Yoongi is the first to break it. There is a soft hiss as he extinguishes the cigarette firmly into the ash tray and a creak of the bed as he leans back and settles against the headboard. 

“If they calm you down, then why do you always put them out so quickly?” Jimin asks, the words falling from his mouth almost unbidden. He turns his head to watch Yoongi’s shadowed profile, lit from one side by the tiny bedside lamp. It shades his skin a wonderful caramel colour, the kind that no sunlight tan will ever achieve on Yoongi’s perpetual white canvas. Only trickery and perception can change Yoongi like that.

Yoongi turns to him and his lips are curved with dangerous amusement. “Things like those don’t last forever. Better I put an end to them before they crumble by themselves.”

Jimin wonders if Yoongi is still talking about the cigarette.

“I’m not that fragile hyung,” he whispers and is rewarded when Yoongi scoots closer, his body warm as he curves around Jimin. Yoongi rakes one hand through Jimin’s messy hair and it’s so gentle that Jimin closes his eyes and presses up into it.

“That’s what they all say,” Yoongi says softly, his head bent and his eyes shadowed.

Jimin turns so that he is on his back and he grabs Yoongi’s wrist with one hand, stilling it. With the other he curls his fingers around the back of Yoongi’s neck and draws him down into a kiss that is soft and fleeting. It tastes like ash and cinders. A five minute flame whose sweetness burns too quickly and bitterness remains for far too long.

Jimin licks his lips and open his eyes to drown in Yoongi’s dark ones.

“What was that?” Yoongi asks, voice coiled and amused. He’s like a snake sometimes, all smooth scales and glittering eyes, quick to retreat and even faster to strike. Sometimes Jimin wonders if he’s delirious on Yoongi’s poison and is past salvation.

“I won’t vanish that easily,” Jimin says hoarsely and watches as Yoongi’s eyes shift with surprise, liquid and viscous. His eyes are the most expressive part of his face. Other than his lips of course. “I don’t want to be something temporary. I want us to be something more.”

They’re twenty five and twenty seven and Jimin makes a living on darkened stages by taking off his clothes whilst Yoongi puts on his fancy suits and ties and talks his ways through deals and contracts in brightly-lit offices. They’re vastly different people and sometimes Jimin thinks their relationship is as fragile and as a fleeting as the cigarettes that Yoongi always loves to smoke after sex. But sometimes Jimin hates the idea of being compared to one of Yoongi’s cigarettes. He doesn’t want to be something that Yoongi will put aside come morning, extinguished away with toothpaste and gargled out with mouthwash. He wants to stay a permanent a fixture as Yoongi’s sleek business clothes and sharp, cynical nature. He wants more than these stolen moments after midnight and before dawn.

He watches as Yoongi processes it all, mouth slightly open in surprise so that Jimin can taste the smoke in his breath.

“But what if I’m the one to vanish?” Yoongi asks, words slinking around like fog in the early morning city. Its Hong Kong’s back alleys and San Francisco caught in the chill. It’s frigid and fleeting and Jimin has never thought about it this way round. What if Yoongi is his five minute cigarette? What if _he_ is the one who sees Yoongi as his fix, one that is fragile and fleeting and will be nothing but embers underfoot someday?

“I-“ Jimin falters, the words failing him. Words have never been his forte; that has always been dance. The spin of his limbs, the sharp slice of his hips, the allure of his eyes, they speak for him on and off stage. Yoongi is the one who is good with words, his tongue crafting each and every ship of his literary armada.

Yoongi pulls away and Jimin feels the shift of the bed as he gets out of it, the creak and the shuffle as Yoongi pads over to the chair where his clothes from last night are discarded. Jimin doesn't watch but he knows Yoongi’s routine by heart and can imagine it all. The way he’ll shuck off the sweatpants and then shrug on his long slacks and blue button up, the way he’ll throw on his jacket last but ball up his tie to deal with later. Yoongi has to head back to his tiny flat in the middle of the lonely city where he’ll shower and change and leave for work by six. Jimin has to stay here and sleep away his long night until six pm which is when work starts anew as the city slinks into the allure and mystique of Seoul by night.

They’re of two different worlds and yet as Jimin turns to see Yoongi fold up his sweatpants carefully and lay it onto the chair, Jimin finds himself slipping out of bed and wrapping his arms around Yoongi’s waist.

From behind him he cannot see Yoongi’s gasoline dark eyes or the shape of his lips, but this is Jimin’s gesture, the words he is unable to say and the movements that he hopes do. _Stay. Don’t go. I don’t know how this will turn out but I want to give it a try_.

What comes out instead is: “Will you come back tonight?” He murmurs it into the rough, scratchy fabric of Yoongi’s jacket. Yoongi may smell like smoke but his jacket smells like detergent, freshly washed and if Jimin is honest, he prefers that smell on Yoongi more. It reminds him of the spring breeze in Namsan Park with its rows of trees and the scent of leaves and mulch in between.

Yoongi doesn't reply at first. Instead he draws out his phone and taps at it. Jimin leans over Yoongi’s shoulder to watch as his slim fingers dance across the screen, bringing up his schedule quick and efficient. One glance tells him that Yoongi’s schedule is free all evening.

“Hyung?” he prompts when Yoongi does not immediately respond.  

Yoongi half turns and there is partial hesitation in his eyes, dark and shifting like a raven’s wing. Jimin tilts his head and waits for his answer.

“Would you like to go for dinner?” Yoongi instead offers and Jimin’s eyes widen. “I know a good bulgolgi place and if you’re free…” Yoongi pauses, looking flustered for once, his cheeks dusted with faint uncertainty.

A smile stretches across Jimin’s cheeks, so wide that it hurts. “Yeah,” he says and Yoongi flinches like he’s surprised Jimin has just said yes. “That sounds nice.”

He leans forwards to press a kiss to Yoongi’s lips. Yoongi doesn’t kiss back for a moment and that’s okay. Jimin can taste the residue smoke there as he licks into Yoongi's mouth, bitter and astringent, but it’s a taste he’s familiar with and it’s a taste he’s growing to kind of like. 

As he pulls back, ready to finally let Yoongi go, Yoongi leans forwards and kisses him back instead. It’s a brief, tiny moment, but it’s enough.

“I’ll pick you up at six then,” Yoongi says throatily as he pulls away, almost reluctantly.

Jimin’s eyes sparkle. “Six,” he says, a promise, and Yoongi kisses him once more before leaving.

The air outside is cold as the door shuts behind Yoongi but the sky is grey no longer, the sun having risen and turning the sky a soft baby blue. Jimin pulls on the sweatpants that Yoongi folded and they’re still slightly warm with use. He stands there watching the sun rise higher and higher and a giddy feeling builds in Jimin's chest, growing and shifting like the clouds in the sky. 

(And true to his words Yoongi picks him up at six with coffee and a kiss, and when Jimin kisses him back he can still taste the smoke and ash underneath the mocha. To his surprise Jimin finds himself thinking that maybe Yoongi's smoking habit isn't too bad after all. That if the aftertaste sticks around for so long, then maybe Jimin doesn’t mind being Yoongi’s fix after all.)


End file.
